FEEDING. 



WINTER MILK. 203 



same animal ; and it is well known that the milk of dif- 

 ferent cows, fed on the same food, has marked differ- 

 ences in quality and composition. But food, no doubt, 

 has a more powerful and immediate effect than any- 

 thing else, as we should naturally suppose from the fact 

 that it goes directly to supply all the secretions of the 

 body. Feeding exclusively on dry food, for instance, 

 produces a thicker, more buttery and cheesy milk, 

 though less abundant in quantity, than feeding on moist 

 and succulent food. The former will be more nutritive 

 than the latter. 



Cows in winter will usually give a milk much richer 

 in butter and less cheesy than in summer, for the 

 same reason ; while in summer their milk is richer in 

 cheese and less buttery than in winter. As already 

 intimated, the frequency of milking has its effect on the 

 quality. Milking but once a day would give a more 

 condensed and buttery milk than milking twice or 

 three times. The separation of the different constitu- 

 ents of milk begins, undoubtedly, before it leaves the 

 udder ; and hence we find that the milk first drawn from 

 the cow at a milking is far more watery than that 

 drawn later, the last drawn, commonly called the strip- 

 pings, being the richest of all, and containing from six 

 to twelve times as much butter as the first. 



Many other influences affect the milk of cows, both in 

 quantity and quality, as the length of time after calving, 

 the age and health of the cow, the season of the year, 

 etc. Milk is whiter in color in winter than in summer, 

 even when the feeding is precisely the same. At 

 certain seasons the milk of the same cow is bluer than 

 at others. This is often observable in dog-days. 



The specific gravity of milk is greater than that of 

 water, that of the latter being one thousand, and that 

 of the former one thousand and thirty-one on an average. 



